The use of a CATV system to provide internet, voice over internet protocol (“VOIP”) telephone, television, security, and music services is well known in the art. In providing these services, a downstream bandwidth (i.e., radio frequency (“RF”) signals, digital signals, optical signals, etc.) is passed from a supplier of the services to a user, and an upstream bandwidth (i.e., RF signals, digital signals, optical signals, etc.) is passed from the user to the supplier. For much of the distance between the supplier and the user, the downstream bandwidth and the upstream bandwidth make up a total bandwidth that is passed via a signal transmission line, such as a coaxial cable. The downstream bandwidth is, for example, signals that are relatively higher frequencies within the total bandwidth of the CATV system, while the upstream bandwidth is relatively lower frequencies.
Traditionally, the width, in terms of the amount of frequencies included, of the downstream bandwidth far exceeds the width of the upstream bandwidth due to the nature of the services provided. For example, while the downstream bandwidth must accommodate all of the television programming, radio programming, internet downloading, and VOIP downloading, the upstream bandwidth is required to accommodate only internet uploading, system control signals from set top boxes, VOIP uploading, home security information, etc. Problems are arising, however, due to an increase in upstream bandwidth utilization caused by an increasing demand for higher speed internet uploading and an increasing demand for the VOIP telephone services.
In an effort to increase the upstream flow of data/signals, several suppliers have a plan to increase the width of the upstream bandwidth from 5-42 MHz to 5-85 MHz (e.g. from DOCSIS 2.0 to DOCSIS 3.0) to allow for a greater flow of the data/content carried by the upstream bandwidth. Along with such an increase, the width of the downstream bandwidth will likely be correspondingly decreased in width because the total width of available frequencies (i.e., the total bandwidth) is relatively fixed. Such a change is, however, very difficult to implement.
Increasing the width of the upstream bandwidth forces suppliers to push their downstream content into increasingly higher frequency portions of the downstream bandwidth. Unfortunately, these higher frequencies are much more susceptible to parasitic losses in signal strength caused by the signal transmission lines on or near the user's premise, the transmission line connectors on the user's premise, the devices connected to the signal transmission lines on the user's premise, etc.
In an attempt to address the issues resulting from parasitic losses currently occurring in the higher frequencies, providers and users alike have added relatively low-tech signal conditioning devices, such as drop amplifiers that amplify the downstream bandwidth and/or other devices that increase a signal-to-noise ratio of the downstream bandwidth, on or near the premise of the user to account for such losses. Each of these signal conditioning devices contain a set of diplexer filters that separate the main signal path into a forward path carrying the downstream bandwidth and a return path carrying the upstream bandwidth so that only the downstream bandwidth is amplified. Because this set of diplexer filters is fixed to create the typical return path having a width of 5-42 MHz, these often-used signal conditioning devices will prohibit any transition to a wider return path, such as that required by DOCSIS 3.0. Accordingly, any changes to increase the width of the upstream bandwidth must include the step of removing and/or replacing all of these signal conditioning devices that are installed on or near the premise of the user. Compounding the difficulty of implementing such a change, all of the signal conditioning devices must be replaced throughout the CATV system at a single, particular time. Further compounding these problems is the fact that the provider and/or the user may have no idea regarding whether a signal conditioning device is present on a particular premise and/or where the signal conditioning device is located on the premise. Accordingly, such an implementation of a broader upstream bandwidth would be time consuming, costly, and difficult to coordinate.